Tuesday, November 11, 2008

After a solid NHL preseason, Tyler Spurgeon went on to record 4 assists in his first 5 games in Springfield. Some people felt that he should've been the last cut over Rob Schremp and Gilbert Brule. Well, he was playing over his head and after an extra long offseason due to concussion complications, Spurgeon has once again fallen off the map. 1 point in his last 7 games and a +2 in +/- over his first 12 games this season (on the strength on his +2 rating tonight including being on the ice for an EN goal). Spurgeon was even centering the teams 4th line against Hartford on Saturday because his play has dropped that far off.

This is why he would've made a poor choice to be kept with the big team. He needs to get some games under his belt and have a strong level of play for an extended period of time before he's considered to be above players like Tim Sestito and Liam Reddox. Quite frankly right now, he isn't.

Guillaume Lefebvre also won over many of the Oilers faithful with a one sided fight and some solid cycling work down low in the preseason. Guillaume has had 4 fights, none of which were as exciting as his preseason pounding of a Florida Panther, 2 assists (both came in the same game), but on the bright side he's a +3 in 11 games this season. While he has been a fixture on the teams 3rd line, he has hardly shown that he is an NHL player in waiting since being demoted. However he adds some solid depth, but the Oilers rightfully decided to take their play with a grain of salt and wanted to see them keep their level of play at a high level like Marc Pouliot, Jeff Deslauriers, Rob Schremp, and Theo Peckham did last season before gift wrapping them a roster spot.